Emerging adulthoods - Essay Example

due: Emerging adulthoods I do agree with Salvatore that strong social bonds such as marriage, employment, children and hobbies can affect change in the criminal behavior of emerging adults. There are many factors that lead to criminal behavior in teenage life which result in cases of juvenile delinquencies and child offences. When there are no social bonds and turning points these difficulties are carried into emerging adulthood. The solution is to create opportunities for this emerging adulthood; to build social bonds and have turning points as these have been proved to work by previous research. This can be done in various ways. Salvatore talks about social restrictions and age – graded theories that he explains using the term “desistance”. Desistance happens over time while social bonds are developed. Because of the time effect of desistance, the changes that occur are self made and not imposed on the individuals. The person only finds reasons for not wanting to engage in offensive action. These are things like job stability where the person has a stable income and a steady job that he can rely on and has no spare time for offensive action. The other reason is a strong attachment to one's business, where the person loves his/her job and wants to keep it and, so they abide to rules and regulations of the job and keep the proper business ethics. Another reason is marriage. An individual may get attached to another person, and does not want to get separated from them. Therefore, they distance themselves from anything that could take them away from their loved one. Family ties are also responsible for desistance especially when an individual becomes a parent. They tend to want to set good examples for their children, and be there when they are growing up. Thus, they leave their past life of an offence and build a new one with this motivation. Age also matters when it comes to desistance. One will only look at their age and feel the need to have an alteration from the offensive life they have been leading form years. All this are the opposite of the root causes for an offensive lifestyle. Most offenders have nothing of value in their lives; they have nothing to live up to and without motivation, life has no meaning. Salvatore claims that social controls and turning points are the solution to emerging adulthood, and he is right in that a change in lifestyle could affect a change in performance. While some people may argue that the factors discussed above may not necessarily cause a change of behavior, it can be proven that social bonds like a marriage and a stable job will greatly reduce the time spent with delinquent peers who will always be a bad influence an individual showing signs of desistance. Cultural differences are relevant to emerging adult hoods as they introduce new opportunities and new peers. However, trends are changing in relation to the societal norms. More and more young people in the United States are postponing marriages and some are not getting married at all. Marriage is one of the key transitions to adulthood, and it acts as a socializing institution that requires conformity to conventional social norms (Laub & Sampson 2). This in turn, leads to delayed parenting and the responsibilities that come with parenting. Changes in the economy have also not been helpful for the emerging adulthood growth as the young now have to work very hard; just to have a middle class lifestyle and most give up trying. Increased educational credentials are also required, just to get a decent job. This is problematic to most young people; who have no post high school education. This leads to lack of financial independence, which makes most young people remain at home or move back to their parents’ houses, and continue on with their offensive performance. These trends in marriage, economy, parenting and education have led to an extended transition period where the young adults continue acting like teenagers trying to find themselves while continuing with their offensive behaviors. These trends have changed the traditional timing form expected change (18-23 years) to an unknown time. If the trends continue to change in this rate, there will be no transitions for offensive action. Failure by previous researchers to identify changes in development timing is to blame for the dilemma brought about by the effects of these trends. Salvatore tries to change the subject of emerging adulthood by doing a study on the individuals called “measuring social bonds and turning points”. In this study, he adds on areas of interest that were previously not studied. For example, age and gender. The female person was not considered in previous studies yet in my opinion they have a lot to contribute in the study of the development process. His topic is different as he based it on the hypothesis that he tried to prove; by asking the individuals some simple questions. For example whether they are parents or not, in order to prove the hypothesis that whose persons with children will most likely not participate in offensive behavior because of the responsibilities that comes with parenthood. This is a good hypothesis but, it has its own limitations in that most of the females are responsible for taking care of the children i.e. they spend most of their time tending to the children in comparison to their male colleagues. So this is only suitable for the female individuals and not the male persons in this hypothesis. The study also looks at other areas like employment, with the hypothesis that those who are employed and work many hours and are satisfied with their work are less likely to engage in offensive actions. He also looks at economic well being where those who are firm economically are less likely to engage in crime. Military service, which is a new area of study, as it had not been considered before was researched by Salvatore. This was with the hypothesis: individuals who served in the army were less likely to engage in criminal activities. Parental attachment and attendance of religious services are also new areas that are relevant in the emergence of adulthood. Children attached to their parents feel safe and protected and have a sense of belonging and so, they are less likely to engage in offensive action. On the other hand, a child who is disconnected from its parents may engage in offensive behavior as a way of seeking attention. Regular attendance of religious services is a good sign that an individual will not engage in offensive conduct. This is because most offenders get the support they need from religious institutions where they are helped to transform their lives. To summarize this study, scores were kept were (no = 0 and yes = 1) for each of the hypothesis. Results showed that the males, individuals without children, individuals who were not married and those that served in the military had significantly higher scores on the scaled crime outcome measure. Age and gender were found to be significant predictors of scaled offense result regardless of the model specification. For every additional year in age, there was a 10% decrease on the scaled offense result. The males had an average higher score on the scaled offense outcome than the females. Two turning points were found to be significant predictors of offense i.e. marital status and having children. Those that were married and had children showed a low score on the scaled offence result. Although this study covers more areas that are relevant in the study of emerging adulthood, it has not offered solutions to the problems brought about by the trends in education, economy, marriage, parenthood and others that will continue to change as time passes. Does it mean that teenage offenders will eventually become adult offenders and that there will be no hope for development for emerging adulthood? Other than this limitation the Salvatore has identified other limitations to this study. The problem of the military serving giving a, negative turning point, instead of a positive turning point is a disturbing problem because previous studies show that military service gave a positive turning point. According to Salvatore, this was brought about because of the former Vietnam militants, and the situation will become in due time. He also acknowledges that it is a bit difficult to determine the result of emerging adulthood using social economic status. Salvatore also says that the key points used in the study of emerging adulthood could have different outcomes in other areas of the world with different economies, education e.t.c. in which I agree with him (Salvatore & Taniguchi 739). Smith, in his book “Lost in Transition” discusses how the current youth encounter unique problems that the older generations do not understand. This makes the older generation label the young as being problematic and irresponsible yet, the young are simply clueless on how to emerge as successful adults. Smith also blames the older generation for the pain and confusion the young generation face because the old, who are supposed to be knowledgeable reject the young and ignore outright signs of failure and desperation. It is up to the older generation to guide the young, but that is usually not the case as the older generations rather judge and point fingers at the young. It is a sad scenario in this society where individuality is the order of the day in most communities, in the United States. People do not bother to socialize or talk about how they are going on with their lives and help those in need. Parents will not talk about their delinquent children to their peers and the community will keep their children away from offensive children. This does not help the situation; in fact, it makes it worse because offensive children are shunned by their peers, which can be traumatizing, and make the process of development difficult. In my opinion, it is wise to embrace these offensive children in communities and give them an opportunity to change rather than separating us from them. Smith identifies five problems that affect the young people today. He talks about confused moral reasoning, routing intoxication, regrettable sexual experiences, materialistic life goals and disengagement from civic and political life. All these are current issues that not only affect the emerging adulthood negatively as young adults, but also affect them later in life when they are older. A good example is disengagement from civic and political life where the young are never interested in matters dealing with politics. The elderly remain in power for far too long, and the young suffer in return because they are not represented or involved in the process of decision making. Poor leaders may also get into power if the young adults fail to vote, and choose a leader of their choice who will look after their needs as young people. Routing intoxication also affects many young people throughout their adult life. For example; excessive drinking may lead to alcoholism and drug use may lead to addiction. These problems force the young to continue in their offensive behavior because they require money to keep drinking, buying drugs and buying material things. With this lifestyle, they will need quick money for their expenses and getting jobs is not very convenient as stealing and getting involved with other criminal activities just to get the money more quickly. Smith also blames the failure in education as the reason why the young have problems. Education should equip the learners with skills that will enable them survive in life. One should be able to do skilled labor if they do not have post high school education. This would help curb the high crime situation in society today. In conclusion, all the emerging adulthood problems can be resolved, and in turn enable the young to have an easy time growing into responsible adults. This can be achieved if the older generations take an interest in the lives of the younger generations and offer guidance through mentorship programs and self help groups. Works cited Christopher Salvatore & Travis A. Taniguchi (2012): Do Social Bonds Matter for Emerging Adults?, Deviant Behavior, 33:9, 738-756 Smith, Christian, Kari M. Christoffersen, Hilary Davidson, and Patricia S. Herzog. Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. New York: Oxford University Press, 20011. Press. Read More